Please recommend a book(s)

I'd suggest visiting your local library (they may even have their catalogue online) to see what they have in the areas you mention. Might as well as put your tax dollars to work and check out the "free" books at the library first. Alas, many might be checked out (i.e., they may not carry a large stock of each book) and why it helps if they have their catalogue online so you can put a hold on a book and wait until they e-mail you when it is waiting for pickup.

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc-index.txt

-rw-r--r-- 1 ftpuser ftpusers 919381 Mar 14 23:45 rfc-index.txt

[compton ~]$ zcat rfcs/rfc-index* | sed 's/^$/\\%/' | tr -d '\\n' | tr '%' '\\n' | grep '^[0-9]' | tr -s ' ' | grep -v 'Not Issued' | sed 's/.*Status: //' | tr -d '\\)' | sort | uniq -c | column 162 BEST CURRENT PRACTICE 1670 INFORMATIONAL 138 DRAFT STANDARD 1840 PROPOSED STANDARD 310 EXPERIMENTAL 84 STANDARD 216 HISTORIC 909 UNKNOWN [compton ~]$

That was 5229 documents as of 3/15/2009, many of which are useless or obsolete. Download the index (the rfcs are in the same directory, plus more ``stuff'' so you have to have some idea what you are looking for) and then use a keyword search tool - like 'grep'

[compton ~]$ zgrep -ci secur rfcs/rfc-index.03.15.09.txt.gz 241 [compton ~]$

It also has documents that explain WHY your system does what it does:

1122 Requirements for Internet Hosts - Communication Layers. R. Braden, Ed.. October 1989. (Format: TXT=295992 bytes) (Updates RFC0793) (Updated by RFC1349, RFC4379) (Also STD0003) (Status: STANDARD) 1123 Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and Support. R. Braden, Ed.. October 1989. (Format: TXT=245503 bytes) (Updates RFC0822) (Updated by RFC1349, RFC2181, RFC5321) (Also STD0003) (Status: STANDARD) 1180 TCP/IP tutorial. T.J. Socolofsky, C.J. Kale. January 1991. (Format: TXT=65494 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

[compton ~]$ grep -ci secur howto/HOWTO-INDEX

87 [compton ~]$

news://comp.*.advocacy -------------> is that way

Social Engineering - Because there is no patch for human stupidity.

I'm no longer amazed at the articles on the Bugtraq mailing list relating to security problems with web servers. It seems that every klown in the world has to put up a web site so he can show pictures of his dachshund wearing a white shirt and eye patch trying to shag that doberman or rottweiler, but the klown is to st00pid to learn anything about computer applications, and instead installs some piece of PHP that he found under a rock on a spam server. And then he wonders why his system is 0wn3d.

The _publisher_ you want is O'Reilly and Associates

a good start), but you could grab a book or two for free from the Linux Documentation Project - such as the Linux Network Administrator's Guide by Olaf Kirch - * The Linux Network Administrator's Guide, Second Edition * Linux Administrator's Security Guide

There are 35 books available for free on that web site alone.

Old guy

Just to reinforce the O'Reilly reference made by Moe Trin,

(or offers introductory programs as well as long-term free accounts for students, professional groups (IEEE, ACM, etc.) and members of various other organizations. Lots of books, articles and tutorials available.

Dick

Thanks to both of you. Looks like a good start - and I can get many of these through my Library system to see if they're worth investing in my own copy (so thanks to all three that responded).

The web links are quite useful - danke!

Cheers.